The far-left Star-Tribune reports the number of gunshot victims in Democrat-run Minneapolis is up 90 percent over last year. That is not a typo. Ninety percent. Ninety, as in nine-oh.

My favorite part of the Star-Tribune report comes in the form of just two words: “solutions evasive.”

Oh, yeah, this is a really tough nut to crack. Let’s see if we can puzzle this brain-twister out…

ELITE JOURNALIST: Let’s see, let’s see… Okay, so this year, shooting victims are up 90 percent over last year. Which means that last year there were 90 percent fewer shooting victims. *taps chin with index finger* What to do, what to do…? *scratches beard* You know, I’m at a total loss here .

COMMONER: Well, uhm, if there were 90 percent fewer gunshot victims last year, wouldn’t the solution be for the city to return to what it did last year?

ELITE JOURNALIST: It’s all so baffling, the solution is so… so… so… *gazes at navel* …evasive.

COMMONER: But whatever the city did last year worked. It sounds to me like we just need to go back to that.

ELITE JOURNALIST: *takes quiche out of oven* Well, some problems just can’t be solved.

Why would anyone live in a Democrat-run city?

Oh, and it’s not just shooting victims that are up. “The number of homicides in Minneapolis,” the Star-Tribune reports,  “jumped from 48 in 2019 to 84 in 2020 — one of the deadliest years on record. This year is on pace to exceed 2020’s total.”

As far as gunshot victims, there have already been 273 this year, which is more than two per day.

And where does the Star-Tribune pin the blame?

From [Democrat-run] Portland to [Democrat-run] Baltimore, cities across the country saw shootings and homicides soar in 2020, a trend that has continued in the first half of this year. The spike has been blamed on a combination of factors, ranging from rising gun sales to entrenched inequality to frayed relations between communities and law enforcement — all made worse by the COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] pandemic, which has disproportionately impacted communities of color.

Gun sales? Inequality? Coronavirus?

Yeah, it couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that the Minneapolis police force has been wiped out by resignations, retirements, and mental health claims — which means there are more than 200 active-duty officers no longer on active duty.  Since the start of 2020, the number of Minneapolis police officers has plummeted to one-third. And all of it is due to a left-wing political and media establishment that openly sides with lawless rioters and criminals while smearing police officers. All of which might explain why “violent crime arrests drop[ped] by about a third, with about 400 so far, compared with about 600 at this time last year.”

It gets better, so much better. Democrat Mayor Jacob Frey’s “solutions” are pure gold. He’s “deploying teams of violence intervention workers” and proposing  “unarmed community safety specialists patrol the hardest-hit neighborhoods.”

Oh, yeah, putting “unarmed community safety specialists” in the worst neighborhoods is a genius plan … if you want to rid the world of “unarmed community safety specialists.”

Other Minneapolis nitwits are suggesting “funding affordable housing, health initiatives, and other services supporting communities of color, not more cops.”

The only thing Frey is doing that makes any sense is bringing in outside law enforcement to make up for the 200-plus losses, but that is far from a permanent solution and obviously not working.

We know what works because we did it in the 1990s after two decades of staggeringly high violent crime rates. Put cops on the streets and enforce the laws — all the laws, with no carve-outs for the criminals whose “causes” you sympathize with.

Democrats have politicized rioting, looting, and arson into an acceptable form of protest, even though most of the rioters, looters, and arsonists could not care less about whatever the cause is. They want to riot, loot, and burn.

The tragic thing about all this is that criminal justice reform, as it was originally proposed, was supposed to focus only on non-violent offenders, which I support. But here we are… Pure anarchy in countless Democrat-run cities.

Well, you get what you vote for…

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.